For Some Immigrants, Voting Is a Criminal Act

Posted By
Sebastian Simon

The way Joseph E. Joseph tells it, he was just doing his civic duty.

On his way home from work one evening in 1992, he came across a group of
volunteers in Brooklyn registering people to vote. Mr. Joseph, a legal
permanent resident who had immigrated from St. Kitts eight years earlier,
decided it was time to sign up. He cast a ballot in that year's presidential
election, he said, and in every one since.

His participation in American democracy came at a steep cost: The government
is now trying to deport him.